Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1887-03-19
KITCHEN AND WAGES"

Several weeks ago we reprinted
some extracts from an article under
the above heading, by Rev. j. Tai
bott Smith, Of the Ogde' sburg, n
Y, Diocese. He is one of the few
writers on such subjects who get
down to the real facts. Too many
treat such matters from the high
grounds of theory or Imagination,
without ever having felt a single
pinch of poverty or possessed the
faintest idea of life among the poor.
Because they see few drunkards
or extravagant spendthrifts, they
imagine the body of the working
classes made up of the same sort,
and treat them in finely drawn out
sentences that blind the reader with
the blindness of ignorance and pre-.
JUDGE. Nine-tenths of the prosy
writer's upon labor and poverty have
never performed days work, and
the nearest the bitter cup Of want
and poverty ever reached their lips
was in their fertile but heartless i'm.
aginations.
We hear much about the poor and
poverty, about the laborer and la
Dor, from the pulpit, the press, and
from the political mean nothing
speeches of statesmen. Few, indeed,
of all these know anything about
real labor or real poverty. They
themselves are well clothed and fed.
They have been educated by parents
or the church, and the d liars they
earned by the sweat of their brow
would keep no wolf from the door.
But they are ready with tongue and
pen, and injustice and misrepresen.
tatiou follow more frequently than
truth and justice. From cosy study,
from warm fireSide and comfortable
home, the laboring man and bis
work and wages are considered, and
poverty is handled with a golden
pen as viewed through golden spec
tacles. No deep or darker depths
are seen. The downward grade OF
humanity as it approaches the criIl-
nal, passes not in view. Out OF
sight men and women are driven
from their homes by want, oppres-
sion and desperation, to beg upon
the streets or in the lanes and by.
ways, and to seek the shelter OF
heavens dripping clouds because
for them there are no roofs over the
inns of the world.
We have heard of ministers crit,
cising the demands of labor as con.
trary to the teachings of the church,
and accusing labor of wasting Its
substance in drink and extrava-
gance, in a community wherein
among thousands not ten confirmed
drunkards could be found, aud by
the head of a community house in
which more whisky, wine. beer
cigars, tobacco, &C., were consumed
than in any ten houses in the com
munity, and more went to waste
from the table than would support
ten families the year round. These
very people thus equivocally SANDER
ed contributed literally towards
every good work. for 1T is the work
ing people who keep the church GO
ing, who support business, who
spend their earnings instead o
boarding them. The rich sen6
away for their necessaries; anf
their money is mostly invested il
stocks and bonds of far-away en-
terprises.
At home they get the best, liz,
he best and are "tIe best.n TIL,
working classes do the best the,
can. The few who parade them
selves in public, spend their mean
for drink, or sell the last shred t,
J go to show or on excursions, ar
held up by the hirelings of monopo
~ as representatives of the workin,
classes who are judged by SUCH
The thousands of contrary extreme
are not seen because their misery
hidden By their worthiness. Th'
father does not feel the misery Q